A table by the front door of a hip Northern California restaurant is stacked with complimentary copies of a forty-three-page mini-magazine. This handsome brochure, produced by the company that manages the establishment, is printed on thick, textured paper. It\u2019s full of sumptuous full-color photos depicting the glories of food and drink. Somebody spent a lot of time and money on this. But despite a generous budget and a staff of editors, the written content seems to be an afterthought.<\/p>\n
The table of contents lists the wrong page for two of the magazine\u2019s seven articles.<\/p>\n
In an introduction, the editor-in-chief writes, \u201cWe are enamored by every inch of San Francisco,\u201d even though enamored traditionally takes the preposition of<\/em> or with<\/em>. He goes on to call San Francisco \u201cone of the most unique cities in the world.\u201d A good copyeditor would remove \u201cmost.\u201d All proficient editors know that unique<\/em>\u2014meaning \u201cone of a kind\u201d\u2014should stand alone.<\/p>\n In a piece about a farmers\u2019 market, we find \u201clocally-sourced seafood\u201d and \u201crecently-opened bar.\u201d An article about a Napa Valley honey farm refers to \u201cstrategically-placed bee hives.\u201d Anyone who ever took Proofreading 101 knows that adverbs ending in ly<\/em> should not be hyphenated. (And beehive<\/em> has been one word for eight centuries.)<\/p>\n Proofreading 101 also drills students on avoiding danglers, yet this booklet is teeming with them. In an article about a seafood merchant named Joe, we read this: \u201cBased in San Francisco, Joe\u2019s fish can be found on dozens of menus.\u201d (Joe is based there, not the fish.) A few pages later we find, \u201cOpen for breakfast and lunch, you can get the best eggs in the city \u2026\u201d (This inept sentence says that \u201cyou\u201d are open for breakfast and lunch.)<\/p>\n Other gaffes range from clumsy to clueless. America\u2019s \u201cwest coast\u201d is mentioned but not capitalized. A fish\u2019s texture is called \u201cvelvety-like,\u201d even though velvety<\/em> by itself means \u201clike velvet.\u201d Whoever wrote \u201ca couple bites of leftovers\u201d and \u201ca couple calls came in\u201d thinks couple<\/em> is an adjective. In fact, it\u2019s a noun, requiring of<\/em> (\u201ccouple of<\/em> bites,\u201d \u201ccouple of<\/em> calls\u201d).<\/p>\n If a company wishes to make a good impression, you\u2019d think fluent grammatical English would be a crucial part of the presentation.<\/p>\n This restaurant\u2019s management group wouldn\u2019t endorse serving baked orange roughy on paper plates with plastic utensils, or Russian osetra caviar on Wonder Bread slathered in Miracle Whip.<\/p>\n So why produce a sleek publication filled with gorgeous images, only to bring the whole thing crashing down with sloppy articles written by feckless amateurs? Maybe this inattention to detail says something dark about the company. Or maybe it\u2019s just further evidence that clear and precise writing is becoming as outmoded and quaint as pay phones and post offices.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pop Quiz<\/strong> 1. The show\u2019s lead role is played by a nationally-famous movie star. <\/p>\n Pop Quiz Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. The show\u2019s lead role is played by a nationally famous movie star. A table by the front door of a hip Northern California restaurant is stacked with complimentary copies of a forty-three-page mini-magazine. This handsome brochure, produced by the company that manages the establishment, is printed on thick, textured paper. It\u2019s full of sumptuous full-color photos depicting the glories of food and drink. Somebody spent a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,21,12,33,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjectives-adverbs","category-capitalization","category-effective-writing","category-prepositions","category-proofreading"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFix any sentences that need correcting. Our answers are below.<\/p>\n
\n2. Born and raised in Queens, Mr. Walken\u2019s first education for the stage involved dance lessons.
\n3. The food of New Orleans is absolutely unique\u2014and sinfully delicious.
\n4. We were lost until a kindly-looking man helped us find our hotel.<\/p>\n
\n2. Mr. Walken was born and raised in Queens. His first education for the stage involved dance lessons.
\n3. The food of New Orleans is unique\u2014and sinfully delicious.
\n4. We were lost until a kindly-looking man helped us find our hotel. CORRECT (\u201ckindly\u201d is an adjective here, not an adverb)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"